While on a road trip to New England this summer, Kim and I wandered into a small bookstore in the idyllic coastal town of Camden, Maine. I never read books, so this stop was to allow Kim to reload with more reading material for the days ahead. I did look around and came across a book by Robin Wall Kimmerer called The Serviceberry- Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. This caught my eye because some of the trees that Root Nashville planted on Calvary’s property were serviceberries. I bought the book – it was small with some illustrations and didn’t appear that it would challenge my intellect. The subtitle “Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” is what really sold me. As a young teen, I was fascinated with Thoreau’s On Walden Pond. I also was intrigued by Muir and Emerson, so this short, easy to read book with illustrations and an emphasis on the natural world seemed to speak to me.
Serviceberry trees are known by many names: saskatoon, juneberry, shadbush, sugarplum, are just some of its identities. The number of names supports the cultural importance of the serviceberry. It is loved for its fruits, its medicinal use, and as a calendar plant that is so faithful to seasonal patterns that humans for years have used it as a signpost for yearly activities. In the northeast, its bloom was a sign that the ground had thawed, and circuit preachers were able to travel on mountain roads that were previously unpassable. It is also an indicator to fishermen that shad were spawning making it an ideal time to fish for the larger gamefish that feed on shad. Its early flowers are a source of pollen for newly emerging insects, and its leaves serve as hosts to multiple types of butterfly larvae. The serviceberry is reciprocated in nature by the dispersers who spread their seed and by the pollinators who allow it to flower and produce new seeds for new trees. Without the reciprocity of the pollinators and dispersers, the serviceberry would cease to exist.
Kimmerer is a botanist, ecologist, and a member of the Potawatomi Nation, an indigenous people of the Great Lake region. The Serviceberry fuses all of Kimmerer’s backgrounds to assert that this plant is an example of a ‘gift economy’ based on the plant’s relationship with the rest of nature as an embodiment of interconnectedness and gratitude. Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based on reciprocity rather than accumulation, where wealth and security come from the quality of our relationship, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency."
What you and I might consider natural resources, our indigenous predecessors considered as gifts. Gifts were not transactional in a way that one might accumulate them. No, these gifts are in motion and always cycle through the ecosystem. Gifts are treated with respect and gratitude. Their culture of gratitude recognizes and takes responsibility for these earthly gifts.
A simple example of gift economics might be that I share a pie with you and you help me put hay in my barn. Large scale gift economies arise spontaneously for humans in times of disaster. When human lives are threatened, compassionate acts overrule market economies. Bonds of ownership disappear when everyone pools resources together as gifts for anyone in need. "Mine" magically becomes “yours, if you need it.” A truckload of water that could be sold is freely given to anyone in need. Disney calls it the ‘circle of life' and life is cyclical. We reap what we sow. We have been given magnificent and innumerable gifts and have struggled to show proper responsibility and gratitude.
Here’s the invitation: whatever your currency of reciprocity: money, time energy, acts of care large or small, are all needed and appreciated. Love begets love. When you come into Calvary’s main office door, you’ll notice a cluster of trees on your left. These are serviceberries. When they flower in the spring and produce berries in the fall, think about this invitation and the example of the serviceberry that gives freely of itself and owes its very existence to reciprocity of those that are gifted.
David Low
